On hypocrisy in Anon-A-Miss fics

Normally, I'm a fan of fixfics. Despite what the show's writers and the fanatics in the fanbase may try to insist, the writers aren't infallible, nor are they above criticism, and there's nothing wrong with someone who can do it better... doing it better. But there's one branch of fixfics that I just can't support. As you can probably guess by the title of this blog entry, I'm referring, of course, to Anon-A-Miss fics. Now don't get me wrong, the source comic was absolutely terrible and would normally make for prime fixfic soil, and there are one or two fics out there that are actually quite good. But the vast majority of these fics are hot garbage. And it's easy to see the problem. While there are one or two Anon-A-Miss fics that have their own unique brands of problems*, most of them have the same general problems, stemming from the fact that the first is that most of them are clones of each other. I could probably write a blog post each on its many problems, from them being grimdark dreck with unhappy endings, to them either indulging in disproportionate retribution or having Sunset nearly killed by an angry mob to try and justify the retribution, to how many of them are borderline - and in a couple cases, openly - misanthropic. But there's one particular problem common to all of the bad ones - and is even in most of the good ones - that no one else seems to have noticed. Specifically, I want to talk about Twilight Sparkle's hypocrisy in these fics.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Wait, WHAT!? How is Twilight a hypocrite in any of this?" Let me explain. As anyone who's read any of these fics would know, a virtually universal staple of these fics is Twilight coming to the human world to rant at the Rainbooms and the CMC. Sometimes she also blames herself for not intervening sooner, or also helps Sunset expose the CMC, but it's the ranting specifically I want to focus on. "Well, what's wrong with that?" you're probably thinking. "She's the Princess of Friendship, Sunset's her friend, and she charged the Rainbooms with her well-being! Why shouldn't she rant at them for what they did?" The answer: because Twilight Sparkle has gotten away with doing worse to one of her supposed friends with the Mare-Do-Well fiasco. Yes, the Rainbooms abandoned Sunset on flimsy evidence, but Twilight betrayed Rainbow because of not anything wrong, but because of her ego**. Yes, the CMC wrecked Sunset's reputation for petty reasons. Twilight did the exact same to Rainbow. And yes, the Rainbooms went unpunished and the CMC only got a slap on the wrist in the original. Twilight and her co-conspirators not only got away with what they did, they walked away convinced - and with convincing their victim - that they were right.

Now, anyone likely to read my blog entries likely already agrees with me that Anon-A-Miss fics are crap, and don't really need one more reason to hate them. And I fully understand that. This is mostly me just airing an epiphany I had that no one else seems to have noticed.

*One of the more... "interesting" ones including Rarity turning to Sunset's side before her innocence is proven because she comes to the conclusion not that Sunset is innocent, but that she's running Anon-A-Miss as a loyalty test (which should've kept Rarity away from Sunset, since anyone who'd do such a thing would be a horrible friend), and a completely unnecessary scene where Sunset forgives the Dazzlings for no reason, despite them being unrepentant (the given justification being the Fall Formal, which doesn't work since - as I've noted in a previous blog entry - Sunset either wasn't in control of her actions after claiming the Element of Magic, or was brainwashed for her crimes)

**Which is also hypocritical of her, considering that Rarity's also a massive egotist and both Pinkie and AJ have prideful streaks***, but they've never been punished for it.

***And upon reflection, that also makes those three hypocrites for participating in the scheme, and makes Rainbow, AJ, and Rarity hypocrites for heckling and trying to upstage Trixie

Comments

[EchoWing]

At this point, I honestly think that Anon-A-Miss has been beaten into the ground so hard, it's nearing the molten core of the planet. Or China, whichever. And I say this as someone who's written a couple fanfics connected to it.

You're not wrong about Twilight acting hypocritical, though. For all the sins of the original comic, that one wasn't among them. And thankfully, it's one sin my version didn't have. At least, not so blatantly.